


(Not) A God

by leviathanchronicles



Series: Danganronpa Character Studies [2]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Character Study, Cults, Emotional Manipulation, Gaslighting, Gen, Kokichi is very ... grey here, Morally Ambiguous Character, Their personalities aren't fabricated by team dr, Well-Intentioned Extremist, but you can easily pretend this is a fake memory, um
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-14 03:44:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17500901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leviathanchronicles/pseuds/leviathanchronicles
Summary: Kokichi loves DICE, and he loves being praised, and he loves his own delusions of grandeur.At times, he isn't sure what he loves most.





	(Not) A God

**Author's Note:**

> HEY okay so some notes about this: kokichi is, in my intepretation, not malicious but definitely not a good person? he truly loves the dice members, but he's manipulative in that, just because he's...like that. i also wanted this to be a bit tongue-in-cheek? i didn't quite accomplish my goal w this fic, but it was a fun challenge to write, and i had fun so yk. 
> 
> warnings for emotional manipulation, references to abuse and abandonment, etc.

He goes into it with good intentions -- because if nothing else, he always has good intentions. He wants to have fun. He wants to help people. He is not good, but he does have good intentions.

The first people he asks are the ones he knows best, the ones he knows will agree with him. His foster brothers --  they’re the ones that gave him the idea in the first place. A kid he hangs out with on the streets, well aware that he has nowhere else to go. A girl from another foster home who eats with him at lunch. 

And so there are five members.

The others are sort of picked up by their bootstraps -- another person from the second foster home, a friend of a friend, a boy with bright eyes and a clenched jaw.

He meets the last two in a fast food restaurant, tucked into a corner booth and sharing fries.

“We can help you,” he says, pulling a chair over so he can look at both of them. By now, he is familiar with the looks of distrust in their eyes -- it is this that he leans into.  “You know, we look out for each other. None of us really have anyone else -- the world’s screwed us over, so we’re taking our lives back. Together.”

They talk for an hour, and the distrust morphs into starry-eyed faith.

And then there are ten members, and all of them get along, because they’re a family. He’s looking for new members, always -- but these nine are the ones that he worries about.

They make matching costumes together, passing a piece of paper back and forth to add designs. None of them really know how to sew, so it takes some practice at first. They stitch buttons onto fabric scraps and tug at them until they’re satisfied with the strength, then they move to the jackets and attach a million buttons in random places.

The scarves are all cut from a giant spool of fabric with too-dull scissors, and all the edges are ragged and messy, but they look fun. And the ground is covered in tiny bits of fabric that they won't get rid of for weeks, but they had fun.

Fun is a big deal for them -- for these kids who, in many cases, couldn’t have much fun before. It was an opportunity for them to pretend they hadn’t had to grow up before their time. And he wants them to have fun, so he designs the organization around the idea of blending fun with world domination.

He has to set out some rules, but he tries to avoid becoming a dictatorship. The entire point is that they’re breaking away from the world that wanted to control them: authority figures that target them for no reason, parents that mistreated them, teachers that didn’t understand. He isn’t trying to control them.

Rule number one is no murder. The other acts of evil are fine. but murder -- murder is evil. and he likes to believe none of them would be murderers (he thinks he has better taste than that), but he’s watched Danganronpa. They’ve all watched it, actually -- it’s one of their weekly activities, sitting and watching people commit horrific crimes.

It’s an awful show. Evil, terrible, demented. And they watch with wide eyes, laughing and placing bets and making jokes. But it’s just a show.

Rule number two is no lying, and he is as serious about this one as he is the first. He stands up straight, trying to seem taller than he is, as he explains. Playing pranks is great, telling jokes is great, but lying? Absolutely not. They don’t lie to each other -- they’re a family, and families are supposed to be honest with each other. 

“If you can’t trust us enough to be honest, you clearly don’t trust us enough to be in this organization. We take this seriously,” he says, for once not making any jokes. 

And usually, they take it seriously, too. 

At first, when he starts talking about their mission, about the evil activities he has planned, they would avoid his eyes. They’d snicker, or hide smiles, and say “That sounds like a great idea.”

He knows when they’re just humoring him, and it makes his skin crawl with misdirected anger. He’s not upset that they don’t believe in the mission -- everyone needs to be convinced of certain things, and he will not guilt people for not seeing what he does. Not everyone is smart enough to see that far in the future.

No, what angers him is that they feel the need to lie about it. He doesn’t understand why they would rather be condescending than just tell him that they disagree. Like he’s some child who needs to be pat on the head and told he’s doing a good job  --  no, he’s a leader. He knows his destiny better than any of them.

So he snaps at them one day, goes off about trust and lies and how he doesn’t need them to understand for him to succeed. And he knows as he says it that he is lying, that he is desperate for them -- for anyone to understand what he is capable of. And maybe now it’s just fun pranks and clown masks, but one day -- one day everyone will fear him. 

He needs someone to understand how powerful he is.

But he’s allowed to lie. The rules are different for him, and he doesn’t need to explain himself, so he won’t. Besides, they don’t have the same skill as him when it comes to detecting lies.

They stop treating him like a little kid after that. He doesn’t think that he’s convinced them of much, really, but if they ever doubt him, they don’t bring it up.

And fine, yes, the evil part always was harder to sell. It helps that all of them were disenfranchised -- he leans close and rests his hand on one of their shoulders as he points out how the world is terrible and needs to be improved.

“Look at them,” he says, voice low and comforting. “I mean, look at us, even! We all just sit here and accept everything the world spits out. We watch these awful shows -- we’re watching the people in this world tear themselves apart. We’d be doing the right thing if we took over.”

He means, of course, if he took over, and they supported him through it -- and by the time he makes that addendum, they usually agree that he’s the best person for the job.

He auditions for the show with a wide grin and excited chatter about how he really thinks he could add something exciting to the show. It’s all designed to manipulate  --  thinly veiled comments about making the show better, him twirling his hair around his finger in an effort to pretend he’s self-conscious about his intelligence.

The others vet it before he sends it off, and when he gets in, they celebrate with him.

They’re happy, they say, because he’s going to end the show. He’s going to teach everyone a lesson. He’s going to win.

They trust him.

**Author's Note:**

> is this an au where the characters weren't fabricated?? is it a fake memory?? take your pick
> 
> kudos, comments, criticisms are all super appreciated! i love doing requests (tho it'll take some time) and if you want other ways to get in touch with or support me, check out my profile!


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